Throughout history, one of the ways in which the human spirit has overcome or dealt with the brutish forces of authoritarian regimes has been through the use of humor. As such, it is no surprise that clever Americans from sea to shining sea have figured out ways to mock the NSA while also making a dollar or two. One of these folks is Dan McCall, founder of politically themed T-shirt company Liberty Maniacs. Several days after the spy scandal erupted, Dan created a shirt that read NSA: The only part of the government that actually listens. See below:

On Wednesday on The Rush Limbaugh Show, Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) suggested that Obamacare and the possibility of military action in Syria were tied together “by an arrogance of this administration.” Cruz stated, “Fundamentally, actually, these two issues, you look at Syria, you look at Obamacare. They’re tied together by an arrogance of this administration, that they don’t believe they’re accountable to the American people, and they are going to jam their agenda down the throats of the American people.”Cruz said that the only way to stop Obamacare and precipitous action in Syria would be to “rise up and hold every elected official accountable, Democrat and Republican, every one of us, including me.”

Two small points on an end-of-summer weekend. One is connected to Labor Day and the meaning of work. It grows out of an observation Mike Huckabee made on his Fox show a few weeks ago. He said that we see joblessness as an economic fact, we talk about the financial implications of widespread high unemployment, and that isn't wrong but it misses the central point. Joblessness is a personal crisis because work is a spiritual event.

A job isn't only a means to a paycheck, it's more. "To work is to pray," the old priests used to say. God made us as many things, including as workers. When you work you serve and take part. To work is to be integrated into the daily life of the nation. There is pride and satisfaction in doing work well, in working with others and learning a discipline or a craft or an art. To work is to grow and to find out who you are.More

WASHINGTON -- Rep. Lee Terry (R-Neb.) said on Thursday that he is against military intervention in Syria, even though his "gut feeling" is that the Syrian government now possesses chemical weapons that came from fallen Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussain.

Terry, who has served in the House since 1999, supported the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003. In an interview on Thursday with Omaha radio host Tom Becka, Terry said Syria was a completely different situation.

"The theory then and the evidence was that Iraq was an enemy of the United States and had direct plans in either support of al Qaeda and/or with other weapons that we found out weren’t there -- which I still think they were moved to Syria," said Terry. "And it wouldn’t surprise me if some of the chemical weapons that have been used by Syria actually came from Iraq."More

In response to what some consider over-reaching surveillance programs conducted by U.S. intelligence agencies, which have been shown to collect thousands of communications with no terror connection, a group decrying the privacy implications of these programs is turning the tables on the president.

According to the Creator’s Project, “Where is Obama” pinpoints the location of President Barack Obama using what the group calls the ”Crowd-Sourced Positioning System, or CSPS.”

“The position of the president is a state secret. The White House website shows only Barack Obama’s schedule from the current day, but never dates beyond. The accuracy of this information is controversial. Obama, on the other hand, knows your entire calendar,” the creators Kim Asendorf, Ole Fach, Kyle McDonald and Jonas Lund said of the project. “Every person in the world can now participate in the supervision of the President.” More

Aasiya Noreen "Asia" Bibi has been sentenced to death by hanging in Pakistan for drinking water "from a well belonging to Muslim women, [and] using 'their' cup in the burning heat of the midday sun."

According the The New York Post, Asia described her plight thus: "I have been sentenced to death because I was thirsty. I'm a prisoner because I used the same cup as those Muslim women, because water served by a Christian woman was regarded as unclean by my stupid fellow fruit pickers."

JACKSON, Miss. – The Mississippi Supreme Court on Thursday unanimously upheld the state’s open carry-gun law, allowing it to take effect after a circuit judge’s order had kept it on hold about two months.“This court now finds that the circuit judge erred as a matter of law when he found House Bill 2 to be vague and, therefore, unconstitutional. He also erred when he stated that a ‘reasonable person reading the bill could not discern what the law allows and what it prohibits,’” according to the ruling signed by Justice Randy Pierce.

The U.S. military is hesitant to embrace President Barack Obama's plan to launch a missile strike on Syria, current and former officers revealed in interviews.

Military officers ranging from captains to four-star generals said they are uneasy about a potential Syrian missile strike because it could have unintended consequences, such as turning attention away from their exit from Afghanistan, the Washington Post reported.

"I can't believe the president is even considering it," a young Army officer, who is wrapping up a yearlong tour overseas, told the Post under the condition of anonymity. "We have been fighting the last 10 years a counterinsurgency war. Syria has modern weaponry. We would have to retrain for a conventional war."

Marylanders drove their vehicles 4% fewer miles from 2005 to 2011, mirroring a general driving decline across the country, according to a report released Thursday by the Maryland PIRG Foundation.

Some of the reduced driving may have been due to the recession. But the state-by-state analysis based on federal figures found driving declined as much or more in states experiencing lower unemployment rates. There was also a more pronounced decline in driving among Millenials, people age 16 to 34, and a smaller percentage of 19 year-olds holding driver’s licenses than 30 years ago.

The report also found that increased telecommuting did not reduce the total number of miles driven.More

State Department reveals Hillary Clinton received $500K worth of jewelry from Saudi king

Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, President Obama and Vice President Joe Biden received expensive gifts from Saudi Arabia, Russia and China, among others.Foreign diplomacy doesn’t always resolve world-class problems, but it sure does rake in the swag.

Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was given a half-million bucks worth of diamond and ruby jewelry by Saudi Arabian King Abdullah bin Abdul Aziz and received $58,000 worth of bling from Brunei.

The lavish gifts were among a treasure trove of keepsakes bestowed upon U.S. leaders in 2012, the State Department disclosed Thursday.

President Barack Obama called for a 1 percent pay increase for federal employees in two letters he sent to Congress Friday afternoon.

The letters, which were nearly identical, applied to both members of the uniformed services and civilian federal employees covered by the General Schedule.

"Civilian federal employees have already made significant sacrifices as a result of a three-year pay freeze," Obama wrote. "As our country continues to recover from serious economic conditions affecting the general welfare, however, we must maintain efforts to keep our nation on a sustainable fiscal course."More

Fourth-grade students in Illinois are learning that “government is like a nation’s family” because it sets rules and takes care of needs such as health care and education.

So says a worksheet for social studies homework that was distributed to students at East Prairie School in Skokie, Ill, complete with a drawing of Uncle Same cradling a baby that represents the citizens.

At this very moment a commercial fishing boat is on fire in the ocean around 14th street. The Coast Guard is on the scene rescuing the people on board. Witnesses are seeing a lot of smoke. More to come...UPDATE: We're told there were seven passengers on board when the fishing vessel caught fire.

The thought of this asswipe being the most powerful man on earth should scare the living shit out of every thinking person in America. That narrows it down to a few thousand TBP readers. His awful administration of Harvard from 2001 to 2006 lost the school $1.8 billion of school operating funds as he gambled on interest rate swaps and lost. It’s nice to know he has such a fine grasp on interest rates. He will be controlling them for the world in a few short months.

This guy’s resume is like a freaking train wreck. He was one of the architects of repealing Glass Steagall with his butt buddies Bob Rubin and Alan Greenspan. He single-handedly stopped Brooksley Born from putting any regulation into effect over the burgeoning derivatives market in the early 1990s. Thank God letting Wall Street banks combine with investment firms and then allowing them to issue a quadrillion dollars worth of derivatives of mass destruction didn’t have any adverse consequences on our economy.

This is the same boob who was the architect of the $800 billion Obama Porkulus Program, Cash for Clunkers, and the first time home buyer bullshit credit. He is a Keynesian disciple and is more beholden to the Wall Street criminals than Bernanke or Greenspan ever were. The dude was worth $400,000 in the mid 1990′s and now has a net worth as high as $31 million. Since he left the Obama Whitehouse he has been getting paid big bucks by insolvent Too Big to Trust Citigroup. Him and Bobby Rubin must sit up in the executive dining room eating aborted fetus souffle and laughing about all the good old times.

BERLIN — An energy efficiency incentive program saved roughly $100,000 across Worcester County Public Schools (WCPS) last year.

The incentive program offered schools funding as a reward for reducing a building’s energy output. Of the 14 WCPS, 10 were able to reduce their energy usage enough to qualify for the incentives. Chief Financial Officer Vincent Tolbert briefed the Board of Education on the results of the program, which took place during the last school year, at the board’s August meeting.“Overall we reduced energy over 870,000kwh … total savings were about $100,000 for the six-month timeframe and about $52,000 of that is going back to the schools as financial incentives,” he said. “They’ll be able to use that money for instructional supplies for the classroom. So the money that would have been paid for energy is now being put back in the classroom for the kids.”More

High School Art Teacher Desecrates US flag and tells students to stand on American Flag and describe how they feel: Not Fired.Public School Art Project Desecrates American Flag

Students at a Kentucky high school were encouraged to step on an American flag that had been placed on the floor as part of an art display, outraging parents and students.

The display at McCracken County High School, was a re-creation of “Dread” Scott Tyler’s 1989 installation titled “The Proper Way to Display an American Flag.”

A photograph shows a music stand on top of the flag that had been placed in a hallway, in a story first reported by Kathleen Fox, a reporter with The Paducah Sun.As part of the art exhibit, students were encouraged to stand on the flag and write their reflections on how they felt standing on the flag.Local residents filled social networking sites with their outrage over the flag desecration with many calling for the art teacher to be fired.More

Worcester County’s spay neuter program was recognized for its accomplishments during the recent Maryland Association of Counties summer conference in Ocean City.

During that conference, held Aug. 14–18, the program was the rural winner of the MACo President’s Healthy Counties Best Practices Award, which was started last year. The award recognizes Maryland county programs that enhance the health of a county through programs and partnerships that provide services to citizens in a fiscally prudent way.

Worcester County’s award-winning program offers spaying and neutering of cats and dogs by Dr. William Schultz at the Animal Control facility in Snow Hill.More

Secretary of State John Kerry opened his speech Friday by describing the horrors victims of the chemical weapon attack suffered, including twitching, spasms and difficulty breathing.Photo: TheMuslim.Org

Attempting to drive the point home, Kerry referenced a photograph used by the BBC illustrating a child jumping over hundreds of dead bodies covered in white shrouds. The photo was meant to depict victims who allegedly succumbed to the effects of chemical weapons via Assad’s regime.

However, it was later exposed the photograph used had been taken in 2003 in Iraq. It was not related to Syrian deaths whatsoever and was later retracted.

The Secretary of State announced the US will continue “negotiations” with Congress and the American people.

ASSATEAGUE — Some visitors to Assateague this week were treated to a rare opportunity this week when the remains of an unknown shipwreck were uncovered in the surf in the Over-sand Vehicle (OSV) area.Hundreds of shipwrecks have been researched and identified over the years off the coast of Assateague as well as the Maryland and Virginia coasts and remains and artifacts are often uncovered at times of changing tides and shifting sands along the migratory barrier island. Many more have been reported in dated newspaper accounts and other documents over a couple of centuries, but have not been discovered or researched.This week, the remains of an unidentified vessel were revealed in the surf line along Assateague in the OSV area at Mile 18. Assateague officials are uncertain of the age or origin of the heavy timbers that stuck out of the sand in the surf, according to Assateague National Seashore Chief of Interpretation and Education Rachelle Daigneault.More

Mayor James Ireton, Jr. announces that 14 more FLOGARD drain filter inserts have been installed. The filters are the second step in tackling the rubbish and sediment that ruins the health of the river. The first step in keeping the river clean lies with the citizens of Salisbury. If trash is disposed of properly, it never ends up in the river.

“The City is completing installation of FLOGARD units in key areas and are pleased that we will now have over 100 inlet guards installed. Due to our prompt payment practices, the City was able to receive a discount on the units and have applied that discount to order replacement filter media. The inlet guards and media were funded by Community Development Block Grants. The City will continue to budget for additional inlet guards and replacement media going forward,” said Amanda Pollack, Deputy Director of Public Works.

"I am proud of our commitment to the health of the Wicomico River. Our Salisbury Public Works employees, from engineers to river cleanup crews, work every day to reduce the amount of trash that makes it to the Wicomico. I thank long-time employee Howard Landon for always knowing when it's going to rain and when low tide is, for that is when the outfall pipes empty. We have made a commitment to our downtown through these efforts. Salisbury will continue its environmental activism every year by purchasing and installing even more inlet hoods," said Mayor Ireton.

The FLOGARD filters have been installed to filter out trash and sediment before they can get to the river. Since 2012, 110 inserts have been installed in 50 different locations. Some drains have 2 if not 3 grates and a separate insert is required for each grate due to the weight of the catchable debris and to allow for overflow discharge.

Tourism indicators for July show a considerable recovery of the resort economy after a slow June with a less-than-stellar performance blamed largely on wet weather.

Anecdotal evidence from resort businesses indicated that the Memorial Day push was delayed this year to the Fourth of July, an observation substantiated by numbers: July’s hotel occupancy is reported up 3 percent over July 2012, in contrast with June’s decline of 3 percent compared to June 2012.

“I think that’s pretty significant considering all of the challenges we’ve had this year,” Tourism Director Donna Abbott told the City Council this week. “We’re still outperforming the majority of the set we’re compared to.”More

AUSTIN, Texas (Reuters) - The best drivers in the United States live in northern Colorado, while motorists on the crowded roadways of Washington, D.C., are twice as likely to crash as the national average, according to Allstate America's Best Drivers Report released this week.Drivers in the nation's capital get involved in crashes once every 4.8 years on average, compared with a national average of once per decade. The most dangerous cities to drive in after Washington are Baltimore; Providence; Hialeah, Florida and Glendale, California.

On Thursday, thousands of fast food employees and allied union members walked off the job and protested in cities across the country. They were agitating for a hike in the minimum wage, from the current $7.25 an hour to $15 an hour. That isn't going to happen. Congress, however, is considering legislation that would flood the labor market with low-skilled workers. The low wages paid by fast food employers could be depressed even further.

Labor is a market, subject to the same laws of supply and demand that guide the rest of the economy. Employers will pay no more than the amount necessary to attract enough workers to do the job they require. This is the same phenomenon that pushes a consumer to shop around to pay the least amount for a product or service they desire. It is a law of economics, but it might as well be a law of physics.More

According to Politico sources, Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) pushed Obama administration officials "to take military action to punish Syrian President Bashar Assad in response to reports that he used chemical weapons in his nation’s ongoing civil war."

Last night, Obama administration officials (sans Obama) held an unclassified 90 minute conference call after a growing number of Congress members demanded to be consulted regarding military action in Syria. Susan Rice, Chuck Hagel, John Kerry, Director of National Intel James Clapper and Sandy Winnefeld, the vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, spoke for the administration.

The Chicago Public Schools this year are mandating that the district’s kindergarten classes include sex education, fulfilling a proposal President Barack Obama supported in 2003 when he served in the Illinois state senate and later defended when he ran for president in the 2008 election cycle.

At a Planned Parenthood convention at the Ritz-Carlton Hotel in Washington, D.C., on July 17, 2007, a teenage girl who said she worked as a sex-education “peer educator” in the D.C. public schools asked then-U.S. Sen. Obama what he would do to encourage the teaching of “medically accurate, age-appropriate, and responsible sex education.”See more

Arkansas authorities are searching for a man who pleaded guilty to murder and was given to 22 years in prison, but didn’t return to begin his sentence.

Anthony Antwan Millbrooks accepted a plea deal Aug. 12 for first-degree murder and was sentenced to 22 years in the Arkansas Department of Corrections for the 2010 incident, KAIT-TV reported. A judge ordered Millbrooks to return Aug. 22 to begin serving, but he didn’t appear.

Three teenagers charged in a vicious school bus beating were sentenced to indefinite probation Thursday in a Florida juvenile court.

The probation sentence for the trio of 15-year-olds came with multiple conditions including community service, random drug tests and electronic monitoring, meaning ankle bracelets for as long as 60 days.

In addition, the teens must also take anger management classes, comply with mandatory curfews and stay away from the vicitm.

Joshua Reddin, Julian McKnight and Lloyd Khemradj had all pled guilty earlier Thursday to aggravated battery charges in the attack on a 13-year-old boy on a Pinellas County school bus in July. Reddin also pleaded guilty to a count of robbery for taking $5 from the victim after the assault.

(Aug. 30, 2013) Worcester County Public Schools have ramped up security for the 2013-2014 school year with new security deputies patrolling each campus, additional cameras surveying schools, electronic entry systems and other safety measures.

“It offers a vital layer of protection,” said the schools’ Coordinator of Public Relations and Special Programs Barbara Witherow, a member of the schools’ Safety Committee. “When students feel safe and when teachers feel safe, they can focus fully on teaching and learning.”

Discussions on propping up school safety started immediately in the wake of the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting last December, when 20-year-old Adam Lanza shot 26 people and himself at the school.More

MARIETTA, GA. – An 18-year-old man was convicted of murder in the shooting of a baby who was riding in a stroller alongside his mom in a town in coastal Georgia despite the defense's attempt to cast guilt upon several others, including the child's parents.

Jurors deliberated about two hours before finding De'Marquise Elkins guilty of 11 counts, including two counts of felony murder and one count of malice murder in the March 21 killing of 13-month-old Antonio Santiago in Brunswick. The man's mother, Karimah Elkins, was on trial alongside him and was found guilty of tampering with evidence but acquitted of lying to police.

De'Marquise Elkins faces life in prison when he is sentenced at a later date. At the time of the shooting he was 17, too young to face the death penalty under Georgia law.More

Become a LIFELINE CELL PHONE AGENT. Help the impoverished of Baltimore and nearby areas and GET PAID to do it. Make a difference! NO EXPERIENCE REQUIRED.

DESCRIPTION: Great Ideas Marketing Group has partnered with a major Wireless carrier and we are in search of LIFELINE CELL PHONE AGENTS for the Lifeline Program that is sponsored by the Universal Service Fund, under the direction of the FCC (Â http://www.fcc.gov/lifelineÂ ). This is a free cell phone program for qualified applicants. You, the LIFELINE AGENT, are needed to help, a minimum of 30 people daily (150 applications a week), and will be expected to set-up in or around high traffic areas, low income housing areas, government buildings, community centers, churches, shelters, bus hubs, food pantries, and meet with community leaders, activists, etc. This a 1099 independant contractor position.

REQUIREMENTS: MUST have a Smartphone, Tablet, Ipad, or a laptop with webcam to perform this job (mobile wifi or ability to tether tablet, Ipad, or laptop to phone is also needed).MUST be able to work 5-6 days a week, ideally 5-8 hours a day (however long it takes to hit your daily numbers),MUST be comfortable working and speaking with people in the lower income neighborhoods of Baltimore and nearby areas.MUST be at least 18 years of age.MUST be dedicated, self motivated, resourceful and dependable.MUST enjoy working outside.

COMPENSATION: Every enrollment earns you $5.00 (150 a week x $5 = $750 possible). Some Agents make more, some less. Depends totally on you and your drive to succeed.

Congress hasn’t passed immigration legislation, but that hasn’t stopped President Obama from issuing directives that grant amnesty to illegal immigrants.

Last week, the Obama Administration issued the latest in a line of policy directives granting amnesty by default. This latest directive instructs Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officials not to enforce immigration laws in cases where an illegal alien is the primary provider for any minor child—regardless of the child’s immigration status—or the parent or guardian of a child who is a U.S. citizen or legal permanent resident.More

As President Barack Obama has outwardly attempted to curtail Americans’ Constitutional Second Amendment right to bear arms, his Administration has approved huge increases in defense spending and export sales. The Administration is now seeking to eliminate stringent State Department controls on exports and foreign licensing of dozens of categories of weapons and technology from the United States Munitions List (USML) by transferring control to the pro-business Commerce Department.

In spite of the Government Accountability Office (GAO) warnings this change could increase terrorist access to dangerous weapons, the Administration claims this “reform” would enhance “the competitiveness of key United States manufacturing and technology sectors.”

(Aug. 30, 2013) The Wicomico and Worcester County Health Departments received updated test results from the State of Maryland that a mosquito pool in southern Worcester County tested positive for Eastern Equine Encephalitis (EEE). In Wicomico County, there was one pool that tested positive for West Nile Virus (WNV), one pool that tested positive for EEE, and an additional pool tested positive for both.

The pools were sampled in remote, low lying areas of the counties, usually known to have standing water year round. This is in addition to the single sample of mosquitoes from Ocean Pines that tested positive for WNV last week.

West Nile Virus is most common during the summer and fall and the number of infections usually peaks mid-August. The virus is transmitted by infected mosquitoes and spread to humans, birds, horses and other animals.More

This is posted on the door in the Education Dept. at PRMC. Will they continue to get positive awards, etc with things like this going on? If the She-Devil would take a cut in pay they could afford to have the lights on.

A West Virginia woman is the latest victim of a wrongful home repossession. Nikki Bailey, of Logan, W.Va., returned home from visiting her best friend in the hospital to find all of her belongings gone.

As it turns out, an unidentified bank sent repo men to the wrong house, in the wrong town.

You can imagine Bailey’s surprise as her home was bought in full 25 years ago. The only things she was able to recover were a dresser, a chest of drawers and a mirror. Everything else she owns is gone.More

A Kentucky man who is facing a murder charge claims that he killed his wife after she asked him to do so. Ernest Chris Chumbley, 48, calmly called 911 after shooting his 44-year-old wife, Virginia, in the face three times.

He later told police that Virginia, who was battling cancer, asked him to kill her to end her pain.More

A nasty civil war is raging on the Upper Eastern Shore over replacing one of the GOP’s few bright lights, state Sen. E. J. Pipkin, who opted to pursue a master’s degree in sports management in Texas.

The Lower Eastern Shore’s GOP senator, Richard Colburn, is trying to explain to auditors (and the public) why he reimbursed himself from his campaign fund for $4,600 worth of Oriole baseball tickets, $23,000 in meals, $3,900 in lodging, $3,400 in gas and $600 for flowers.

An Anne Arundel County delegate got himself arrested yet again for potentially lethal intoxication, this time while driving a weaving car at 70 mph with an expired license. Don Dwyer refuses to take the hint from colleagues to resign. He’s got a serious addiction he needs to address before he’s fit for elective office.

SUDLERSVILLE — The Maryland State Fire Marshal's Office has confirmed it was a bomb that fell from the sky on the night of Thursday, Aug. 29, at Darlene's Tavern.

Witnesses reported an object fell from the sky about 9:20 p.m. and buried itself in the parking lot. No one was injured, police said.

Maryland State Police and local fire departments responded. When they cleared away some of the debris, they found what appeared to be a military-style bomb, according to Deputy State Fire Marshal Bruce Bouch. They called for the bomb squad from the fire marshal's office.More

NARRATIVE: A small group of individuals were in front of an abandoned trailer in the 400 Block of Grasonville Cemetery Road with a barbecue grill. An unknown male approached on foot and fired several rounds from a shotgun striking three of the individuals.

The three victims were first treated at Queen Anne’s Emergency Room a short distance away from the scene. Two of the victims were then flown to Shock Trauma in Baltimore with the third being transported there later by ambulance. All three victims are males in mid-20’s to early 30’s and have non-life threatening injuries.

Detectives assisted by MSP Aviation, Crime Scene techs and K9’s remained on the scene for several hours working the scene and attempting to develop a suspect. At this time there is no suspect description.

This morning police presence has been increased in the Grasonville area and a School Resource Deputy has been assigned to the nearby elementary school.

The Sheriff's Office is asking anyone with information to call the Sheriff's Office at (410) 758-0770 or to email sheriff-info@qac.org

As we showed mere days ago, it appears the truth of who the real puppet-master in the Middle-East is becoming plainer to see. The incredibly frank discussion between Saudi's spy-chief Prince Bandar and Russia's Putin exposed a much deeper plot is afoot and the following details from the actual people on the ground in the chemically-attacked region of Syria suggest Obama is playing right into the Saudi's plan. While Obama is 'certain' that the chemical attacks took place on al-Assad's orders, as MPN reports, "from numerous interviews with doctors, Ghouta residents, rebel fighters and their families, a different picture emerges. Many believe that certain rebels received chemical weapons via the Saudi intelligence chief, Prince Bandar bin Sultan, and were responsible for carrying out the dealing gas attack."

The narrative for public consumption is well-known and quite clear - it was all as-Assad's fault. And yet...

A recent report is revealing that distracted driving caused a crash on the Chesapeake Bay Bridge in July. The accident sent a car falling 27 feet into the water.

The report is apart of the Maryland Transportation Authority Police investigation. Authorities released it Thursday.

The document indicates that on July 19th, the driver of a tractor-trailer was looking at his driver's side mirror due to flashing lights behind him when he suddenly drove into a Chrysler Sebring sedan.More

Nearly 2,400 years ago, Aristotle wrote one of the defining works of political philosophy in a book entitled Politics.

It’s still incredibly relevant today, particularly what he writes about tyranny.

The ancient Greeks used the word ‘turannos’, which referred to an illegitimate ruler who governs without regard for the law or interests of the people, often through violent and coercive means.

Aristotle attacks tyrants mercilessly in his book, and clearly spells out the criteria which make a leader tyrannical. You may recognize a few of them:Artistotle suggests that a tyrant rises to power by first demonstrating that he is a man of the people:“He ought to show himself to his subjects in the light, not of a tyrant, but of a steward and a king.”

The slaughter of hundreds of innocent civilians with chemical weapons "shocks the conscience of the world". It has provoked a debate that is dominating our press on how the U.S. should respond to punish the Assad regime. It appears that we are preparing to take some kind of action. But before we commit American lives and treasure, I hope we know the answer to a basic question that no one is discussing. What is the evidence that it was Assad that used the weapons and not the rebels?

There are no good guys in this civil war in which there are already over 100,000 casualties, but which side is currently the most desperate, Assad or the rebels? Why would Assad, whose forces have had the upper hand in recent months, decide to cross that "red line" to kill several hundred women and children, knowing that it would force Obama's hand, provoke an overwhelming response from the U.S. and our allies, and perhaps destroy his regime.. On the other hand, the rebels are very good at manipulating the Western media and would welcome a U.S. response that would perhaps wipe out Assad's air force or other assets.

The Assad regime agreed to allow U.N. inspectors into the area of the chemical attack, but the U.S. quickly discounted what they would find. Snipers attacked the U.N. team that was attempting to investigate.. The government said that that they had provided safety for the team until they reached a position controlled by the rebels, where it claimed the sniper attack occurred.

A Washington Times article by Shaun Waterman dated May 6, 2013 reported that "Testimony from victims strongly suggests it was the rebels, not the Syrian government, that used Sarin nerve gas during a recent incident in the revolution-wracked nation, a senior U.N. diplomat said Monday.". This was virtually ignored by our government at the time.

Congress must demand that Obama present the evidence to substantiate who used the chemical weapons before we jump into another Middle East conflict. We know that most of the rebel forces have been taken over by Al Qaeda, so it is not clear who it is we are helping. One of the few good things that could be said of Assad is that his secular regime has given reasonable protection to religious minorities. Christians, Druze, Alawite and other religious minorities have coalesced around the Assad regime out of fear that if the radical Islamists gain control of Syria, these minorities are likely to be decimated.

A U.S. military action deploying cruise missiles and drones may lead to far more civilian deaths than the recent chemical attack and is likely to provoke a Russian response. So what is our objective and where is this all leading us? One thing is for sure, it has certainly changed the conversation from Benghazi, NSA spying, and the IRS scandals --to 24/7 chatter about what Obama will do in Syria.

She provides free health care to foster children, cancer patients, ministers, even teachers, and says her regular patients get better care than most because she refuses to accept private insurance or Medicare.

"The service is a lot better because all the decisions about health care are made just between the doctor and the patient," Madrigal-Dersch said in an exclusive interview with Newsmax TV.

A year-long investigation by the Investigative Project on Terrorism (IPT) has found that scores of known radical Islamists made hundreds of visits to the Obama White House, meeting with top administration officials.

Court documents and other records have identified many of these visitors as belonging to groups serving as fronts for the Muslim Brotherhood, Hamas and other Islamic militant organizations.

The IPT made the discovery combing through millions of White House visitor log entries. IPT compared the visitors' names with lists of known radical Islamists. Among the visitors were officials representing groups which have:

A compound found in broccoli could be key to preventing or slowing the progress of the most common form of arthritis, according to new research led by the University of East Anglia in the UK.

Results from the laboratory study show that sulforaphane slows down the destruction of cartilage in joints associated with osteoarthritis. The researchers found that mice fed a diet rich in the compound had significantly less cartilage damage and osteoarthritis than those that were not.

The 5th annual (Save the…) BreastFest is being held Friday, September 13th at Pickles Pub on 8th Street in Ocean City, MD during bike week. There will t-shirts, contests, a 50/50, raffles, and entertainment provided by the area’s hottest bands. All of the proceeds go to the DE Breast Cancer Coalition who assists the women of the Eastern Shore. The 5th annual (Save the…) BreastFest is brought to you by Pickles Pub and Semiblind Entertainment. For more information go to www.facebook.com/savethebreastfest